writing challenge

Just a super-quick check-in today as my Big Deadline is tomorrow and I’ve got at least 10,000 more words to write… Meep!

At this time of year the focus is on Christmas parties, school nativities, wrapping gifts, hanging decorations and sending cards, and it can feel a bit strange and isolating to be tapping away at the keyboard, but do know you’re not alone.

And, if we manage to hit (or get close) to our goals, that sparkly wine/cheese and port/tin of chocolate will taste all the sweeter…

I hope you all managed to get lots of words written or a chunk of editing completed. Whatever goal you set yourself, I hope it helped you to get work done when you might not otherwise, and to appreciate your progress, no matter how small.

Speaking of small… I managed just under 3000 words. I really wanted this to be the week that I hit my ‘5000 word’ target, but it wasn’t to be. I have excuses, of course. I always have those.

I got stuck. I got ill. The kids were off school on Friday for a random in-service day.

I also have a bit of news. I will be, um, altering my goal for the remaining five weeks of the challenge. Purely to demonstrate the importance of remaining flexible while juggling different projects, of course. Ah-hem.

I heard back from my amazing editor on Friday. She’s read through draft two of the follow up to The Language of Spells and, as I suspected, it needs a fair amount of work. (Translation: A flamethrower would come in handy).

I’ve spent the weekend re-reading the book on my Kindle and marveling at just how wrong I can get things, and at the unbelievable inefficiency of my ‘process’. My brain seems to find it irritatingly necessary for me to write all the wrong words, before I can clearly see which are the right ones. Sigh.

So, my goal for this week is to rewrite the first third of the book.

How about you guys? Are you busy with your NaNoWriMo word counts? Editing away? I wish you luck!

Okay. I’ll level with you all. Mine was… Fine. Not brilliant, but not bad. I got 3322 new words down (which doesn’t include the words I wrote and then deleted when I realised they were very wrong).

I got stuck.

I’m still a bit stuck, to be honest, so today I’m going to write ‘around the problem’. I’m stuck because I have decisions to make and I’m resisting making them because they feel final and scary (which, of course, is nonsense), so I’m going to force myself to write practice scenes, stuff that isn’t intended to be in the book at all. And I’m going to write about the story in my novel journal.

So. The first week of my eight week writing challenge (also known as ‘Work My Arse Off Before Christmas’) has passed. How did you guys do?

I had a mixed week… I didn’t write at all on two of the seven days and only managed 300 words on Wednesday and Thursday, which left me frantically working on the weekend to catch up a little.

To hit my goal of 40,000 words, I need 5000 per week, and this week I got just 3071.

It was a wobbly week for various personal reasons, though, so I’m fairly pleased with that total. I’m reminding myself that all progress is good progress. I mean, even if I only ever wrote 300 words per day, I’d still complete a book every year.

Yes, yes, I know I’m always commenting on how quickly time flies, but really… Seriously? November?!

1. For many writers (both aspiring and professional), November means one thing: NaNoWriMo. I’ve previously established that 50,000 words in a month is utterly beyond me, but I’m still setting myself a writing challenge. Read about it here and feel free to join me!

4. In addition to stationery and writing challenges, the change in season has brought something else to the front of my mind: knitting. After a break over the spring and summer, I’ve picked up the pins again and started a new project. (This pattern, in case you’re interested.)

5. Contrary to the weather, I’ve just started Instructions for a Heatwave by Maggie O’Farrell. I’m a big fan of her writing, so have high hopes… I’ll report back later!

I was going to title this post ‘eight weeks to Christmas’ but I thought you might throw things at me…

There are, however, eight weeks of the school term left, which is both a nice-sounding amount of time for a writing challenge and a terrifying amount of time in which to get everything else in life sorted. Basically, if I only had to wear one hat (my ‘author’ one) for two months, I think I could finish the first draft of my new book.

However, that is sadly not the case… This term is always busy (Halloween, school concerts, Christmas preparations, seasonal coughs and colds) and I will also have (at least) one more rewrite of my second Carina book, too. Plus, of course, my posts for Novelicious, promotional stuff, and any other bits of freelance writing which come my way.

Still. I would dearly love to skid into the Christmas holiday with a good chunk of the new book written. It’s an idea I began writing last year and it makes me all tingly with excitement. I put it to one side when I got the Carina deal in order to write the sequel to The Language of Spells, but it’s been tickling the back of my mind the whole time.

So. Eight weeks. Even allowing for everything above and the fact that I’m a slow writer, I’m going to aim for 40,000 words.

I’m going to check in here every Monday with an update on my progress and if anybody fancies joining my eight-week challenge, please ‘sign up’ in the comments. Just state your goal (it can be anything you like) and visit every Monday to let us know how you’re getting on/get support/demand chocolate.